Govt to hike grants for construction of toilets

New Delhi: Rural households without sanitation facilities will get Rs 15,000 each for constructing toilets while schools will get Rs 54,000 for same purpose, according to a new Government proposal aiming to end the practice of open defecation in the country.

Stepping up efforts to push Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ambitious Clean India mission, Minister for Drinking Water and Sanitation Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday said he has prepared a Cabinet note for considerable enhancement of monetary support for building different categories of rural toilets in the country where 60 per cent people defecate in the open.

Gadkari also announced the decision to delink MNREGA from toilet construction programme, saying that the scheme started by the previous UPA government did not work well on the ground.

"For individual household latrines, the amount will be raised from Rs 10,000 to Rs 15,000, for school toilets Rs 54,000 will be given instead of Rs 35,000. Similarly, for Anganwadi toilets, the amount will be now Rs 20,000 in place of Rs 8,000 and for Community Sanitary complexes, the amount proposed is Rs 6 lakh from the existing Rs 2 lakh," he said.

"We have prepared the proposal based on the suggestions given by Rural Development Ministers of states. We will go with this proposal to the Cabinet," the Minister later told reporters here.

Asked from where the government will find such huge money for completing the mission by 2019, Gadkari said, "We have three-four proposals from financial institutions like World Bank for this. We will also talk to them and try for a long- term loan from these institutions."

The previous government's decision to have a convergence between MNREGA and toilet construction programme did not work well and "we will delink public toilet from MNREGA," he said.

Gadkari urged the State Ministers and senior officials attending the workshop to work in the spirit of cooperative federalism to achieve the dream project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to build Swachh Bharat by 2019.

In his Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister had pitched for making provisions for building toilets wherein women should not defecate in open.